No more ginger beer as Famous Five updated

Uncle Quentin is no more. The cream buns and lashings of ginger beer have been replaced by pizza and mobile phones.

But Timmy the dog is still endowed with preternatural intelligence and at the end of every episode beastliness and wrongdoing are foiled by common decency and raw pluck.

Sixty-six years after Enid Blyton created her child detectives, the Famous Five are to be revived in a TV cartoon series and books.

Perhaps wary of the original books' reputation for snobbery, sexism and implicit racism, the series producers have replaced Blyton's characters with a more international generation of adventurers led by Jyoti, the Anglo-Indian daughter of George.

Julian's place is taken by his adventure-sports loving son Max, 13, while drippy Anne is replaced by Allie, her California-born daughter, a shopping and texting-obsessed mall rat. Dylan, the son of Dick, is a geekish 11-year-old, who follows the markets on his laptop. Timmy is still Timmy.

Where the original characters tackled Cornish smugglers, Famous Five: On the Case sees the new generation take on a phoney environmentalist running a pirate DVD operation.

Laura Clunie, the series producer, told the Daily Telegraph: "Like the original Famous Five the new characters are smart kids who love to get down and dirty in the outdoors. They are savvy, engaging, love to get stuck into a good mystery. But they also enjoy technology like iPods, computers and mobile phones." Vivienne Endecott of the Enid Blyton Society, said she was "wary" about the Disney makeover. "Anybody can write about four children and a dog, and my concern is that modern kids ... will think that the Famous Five is all about gadgets and multiculturalism."